Hacker News: wholinator2

New comment by wholinator2 in "U.S. science is in chaos"

wholinator2 — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:49:16 +0000

Academics do have a reputation that way, but only the 100% safe, tenured ones. The majority of academics are required to have a strong level of communication just to get their grants accepted. Imagine if, on top of working your normal job at maximum efficiency, you then had to make a presentation to the government every year about why you and everyone that depends upon you deserves to eat, while the government you make the presentation to becomes increasingly antagonistic and detached.

There's quite a lot of people skills involved in surviving as an academic in today's environment. Imagine if you had to teach calculus to 150 random, uninterested teenagers (barely adults) every 12 weeks. There's some serious people skills involved in doing a good job at that (most people do actually try to teach well, I've known multiple people this year refused tenure based on rate-my-teacher ratings).

It's a different set of skills for sure, but being an academic isn't as socially challenged as the zeitgeist appears to believe.

New comment by wholinator2 in "French physicist and media star loses doctorate after plagiarism investigation"

wholinator2 — Wed, 17 Jun 2026 17:57:09 +0000

I believe the person was saying that in academia, literally everyone has a PhD, by definition since it's a requirement for the job, so the simple act of having it means nothing in the context of all of the other people that have it. It of course means a great deal since it's what let's you in to the room in the first place. Imagine interviewing 50 people, every single one of whom have an internship on their resume. What they did during their internship matters of course, but the simple act of having had one doesn't differentiate (matter).

I find it rich how fast you are to jump to destroying the entirety of academia in one stroke. It's quite easy to say things we don't understand should not exist, of course I'm guilty of this myself from time to time. Have you done education beyond the bachelor's degree? It's a very different world.

New comment by wholinator2 in "Feds freaked over Fable 5 after 'fix this code', not jailbreak, say researchers"

wholinator2 — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:46:53 +0000

I'd honestly much rather give my ID to a Chinese model than an American one. If the American ones start requesting ID I'm out. I'm on a gemini organizational account right now that gives me pro but is directly tied to my organizational SSO. So that's something already. I just refuse to upload my face and drivers license anywhere ever.

New comment by wholinator2 in "Shall we play a game? My AI nuclear simulation"

wholinator2 — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:20:31 +0000

Mirror Bacteria is quite the terrifying prospect [1]. I'd never heard about it but the theory is that if we made a mirror bacteria, our and all other immune systems would be unable to defend against it, potentially leading to catastrophic infection of vast swathes of all life across the planet and the unavoidable death of some large percentage of all life. The benefit would be that they could be used in treatment as a chassis to carry other molecules into the body or that they could manufacture mirror-drugs that would have novel effects. Quite the addition to the torment nexus huh.

[1] https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ads9158

New comment by wholinator2 in "Claude Desktop spawns 1.8 GB Hyper-V VM on every launch, even for chat-only use"

wholinator2 — Wed, 10 Jun 2026 19:16:41 +0000

And one interesting aspect is the number of children getting these types of neutered machines as their first learning tool. I read another thread comment saying people that started with react actually feel that using straight html is more complicated. My professors say that the best textbook is the one you've read. The next generation is being indoctrinated into this way of thinking

New comment by wholinator2 in "Ask HN: Are you still using your Vision Pro?"

wholinator2 — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 19:17:16 +0000

I don't believe the two thoughts are mutually exclusive.

New comment by wholinator2 in "Dopamine Fracking"

wholinator2 — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:16:35 +0000

I'm confused. What exactly is it about these immigrants that make them incapable of appreciating fresh food? I agree that you can enjoy your privilege or money just fine, but do you believe that the poor are incapable or unworthy of appreciating wealth or privilege? They're surely more likely to appreciate the cost-to-calorie ratio.

New comment by wholinator2 in "The desperation of NYTimes"

wholinator2 — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 18:30:45 +0000

You probably know but firefox on mobile let's you use extensions, for which i have ublock origin installed and regularly use it to block modals and things that my filter lists (every single one activated) don't cover already.

New comment by wholinator2 in "AI outperforms law professors in Stanford Law study"

wholinator2 — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 01:12:51 +0000

It turns out everybody has at least one right hand, even the people we trust the least.

New comment by wholinator2 in "Gmail thinks I'm stupid, so I left"

wholinator2 — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 21:49:05 +0000

It's only getting easier and friendlier comparatively. Recently i bought a new computer and installing an external drive and putting kde linux on it was easier than fighting my way through the windows telemetry gauntlet, the setting, and all the bloat. Modern windows disgusts me continuously in new ways

New comment by wholinator2 in "It's Not Just X. It's Y"

wholinator2 — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 02:04:48 +0000

In fact, I'd say it's a dead giveaway for "human impersonating AI impersonating humans". Using the hyphen as an em dash screams

New comment by wholinator2 in "I put a datacenter GPU in my gaming PC"

wholinator2 — Sun, 31 May 2026 15:44:57 +0000

How so? I understand that flooding the market with physical goods will reduce prices and thus profits. But how would that also reduce the nonphysical SAAS stuff?

New comment by wholinator2 in "I analysed 20 years of my chats"

wholinator2 — Thu, 28 May 2026 10:58:49 +0000

Damn, could you still call that person a friend afterwards? Was it normal for them to "wander over" and look through your personal items/computer? I think I'd be pretty furious

New comment by wholinator2 in "I analysed 20 years of my chats"

wholinator2 — Thu, 28 May 2026 10:53:32 +0000

Yes, it does have a component of luck. But it also has a component that's not luck, namely the showing up part. Of course there's no "friend solution" and i wouldn't go looking for friends by sitting in the corner of a cafe on my laptop all day. But i bet going to a makerspace, or a hobby meet, is basically guaranteed to make friends within 1 to 3 months of attendance. So don't let the doubt prevent you from going. There's only one way out and it's to start showing up

New comment by wholinator2 in "Search engines alternatives now that Google isn't Google anymore"

wholinator2 — Mon, 25 May 2026 14:35:23 +0000

I'll pitch in that since youtube was bought by Google it's become pretty anticompetitive too. They've absolutely been caught degrading their product on all browsers except chrome. I've witnessed this numerous times on Firefox on my android. Videos refusing to play, subtitles appearing off the screen, refusing to fullscreen, and at least 3 more annoying things i can't remember anymore.

New comment by wholinator2 in "Scammers are abusing an internal Microsoft account to send spam links"

wholinator2 — Sun, 24 May 2026 16:17:45 +0000

Shouldn't there be a button like "i didn't request this" or something? Why would you hit one of the buttons if you know the request is bogus?

New comment by wholinator2 in "Show HN: Files.md – Open-source alternative to Obsidian"

wholinator2 — Mon, 18 May 2026 17:14:35 +0000

This is definitely it. I set it up myself with git private repos because my more-work to more-cost balance weighs heavily towards more-work. It would be trivial to fork it, set up some sync backend, and charge $4 a month to undercut them.

And honestly, they've been very good stewards of the project thus far, I'm happy with the status quo.

New comment by wholinator2 in "The European Union backs Italy's right to make Meta pay for news"

wholinator2 — Thu, 14 May 2026 14:57:56 +0000

I don't know if you read it but I've never heard such a thing and i do read the lefty sites sometimes.

New comment by wholinator2 in "USDA Projects Smallest US Wheat Harvest Since 1972 Due to Plains Drought"

wholinator2 — Thu, 14 May 2026 14:45:36 +0000

Yes, the modern food landscape is a horrific catastrophe for anyone with serious dietary restrictions. It's actually disgusting how many things i used to eat have gone the way of soy/sorbitol and completely fucked their product just to pinch pennies. It happens to something i like about 3 or 4 times a year. They sneak those things in and i am unsuspectingly poisoned for weeks. It's one of the things about the modern world i despise the most. I'd trade the modern food choice for that of the 1800s just to be able to eat any of it. And the sysco-ification of all local restaurants is just as bad if not worse. Sysco doesn't give a Fuck about the quality, they'll put as much filler and fake shit as they can cram in and then the restaurants i can trust grows smaller and smaller every year. I'd have to be rich to be able to eat out! It didn't used to be like this >:(

New comment by wholinator2 in "USDA Projects Smallest US Wheat Harvest Since 1972 Due to Plains Drought"

wholinator2 — Thu, 14 May 2026 14:40:05 +0000

But aren't they trying to build data centers outside of smaller localities, where they do exist somewhat in isolation? Water cannot just be transported thousands of miles, water itself exists in isolated pockets. Straining the water resources of towns is a problem! You can't just say "the US is big so if you look at the maximum possible widest numbers, it looks small". You have to look at the actual human impact. I think data centers look bad because of the human impacts that I've seen, not some highly abstracted spreadsheet.